The Company You Keep

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Robert Redford teams up with Steven Soderbergh’s screenwriting cohort Lem Dobbs (The Limey and Haywire) to adapt Neil Gordon’s novel about a former Weather Underground activist (Redford) who has been living in hiding but must emerge and seek to clear his name when a journalist (Shia LaBeouf) starts digging into the past and discovers secrets that should not be revealed. There’s a too-familiar liberal strain that runs through the film, but things brighten quite spectacularly toward the end when indie darling Brit Marling enters the frame as a pivotal secondary character. Marling’s company is welcome here, yet even she’s not enough to re-spark the secret revolution that director Redford longs to see play out. Now open at Esquire Theatre. (R) Grade: C+